Finally managed to wrestle 'The Wisdom of Psychopaths' (by Kevin Dutton) from my wife. Am about half-way through. Thought the following para was of sufficient interest to quote on Litopia. Context: he is talking about areas of the brain 'lighting up' in response to stories; precise areas are active according to the exact nature of what we read (if our fictional hero picks up a pencil, our brains light up in the region that controls grasping).
" Imagining, it would seem, really does make it so. Whenever we read a story, our level of engagement with it is such that we 'mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative', according to . . . Nicole Speer. Our brains then interweave these newly encountered situations with knowledge and experience gleaned from our own lives, to create an organic mosaic of dynamic mental syntheses. Reading a book carves brand-new neural pathways into the ancient cortical bedrock of our brains. It transforms the way we see the world. . . . Books make us see in a way that casual immersion in the Internet . . . doesn't."
OK, so he is guilty of never using one word where two will do, but I thought the above was interesting & describes a neurophysiological basis of why fiction works. Each of the cookies so recommended by Agent P must/will trigger a little synaptic shock-wave in the innocent reader's head. Think of that next time you put paw to keyboard.
" Imagining, it would seem, really does make it so. Whenever we read a story, our level of engagement with it is such that we 'mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative', according to . . . Nicole Speer. Our brains then interweave these newly encountered situations with knowledge and experience gleaned from our own lives, to create an organic mosaic of dynamic mental syntheses. Reading a book carves brand-new neural pathways into the ancient cortical bedrock of our brains. It transforms the way we see the world. . . . Books make us see in a way that casual immersion in the Internet . . . doesn't."
OK, so he is guilty of never using one word where two will do, but I thought the above was interesting & describes a neurophysiological basis of why fiction works. Each of the cookies so recommended by Agent P must/will trigger a little synaptic shock-wave in the innocent reader's head. Think of that next time you put paw to keyboard.
Don't, whatever you do, press that butt........... 
